Sunday, March 15, 2009
I Could Totally Quote That Cliche Line From Godfather 3, But I'll Refrain
Terminator:TSCC: Today is the DaySeason 2, Episode 18
Thank the Gods, the drought is over. After the terrible, terrible quadrilligy of awful mopey-Sarah episodes we're finally come back to the type of stories that made the second half of season one so much fun to behold. In many ways, last week's episode and this week's felt like part of the same episode and considering this episode ends with those three dreaded words TO BE CONTINUED, I'll hold my total judgment until next week's conclusion.Ok, so Riley is dead. This is good and bad. It's good because we will no longer have to see obnoxious teenager Riley nor obnoxious time traveler Riley. It's bad because now John is probably going to be even more angsty. Somehow everybody believes that Cameron was responsible for killing Riley. We, of course, know that she/it didn't kill Riley, but whenever someone asks Cameron if she did it she refuses to flat out deny it. Instead she plays coy. A ROBOT plays coy. Let that sink into your gourd for a moment.
I'm going to make this quick, again I will reserve my total critique until the final episode of this two-parter, I will say this. This show is always at it's best when it shows us glimpses of the future.
I know, I know, it would be a huge rip off of Lost if they did this week in and week out, but seriously this show always intrigues me most when they tie the future events (Past for some of our characters) to our present storyline. In this case we got to see Jesse say goodbye to Derek before he, presumably, goes back in time on Connor's orders. We also got to see a mission on her submarine, the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter. What's interesting here is that the captain of the sub is seemingly a T-800 named Queeg(played by Chad Coleman who, I am contractually obligated to mention, appeared on HBO's The Wire). Queeg informs Jesse and her crew that Connor has altered their mission and they are to infiltrate an oil platform and procure a package for him.
This is what made this episode great for me. I liked seeing the future sub, Queeg was interesting, but really that oil platform...oh boy. Not much happens here but we see a couple of non-skinned T-800s and a plastic skinned T-800(great call back to The Terminator with the first infiltration Terminators said to have been very fake looking) guarding the package. We don't get to see what's in the box. Thus the "To be continued."
Not quite as interesting this week, but still better than Sarah, was the Catherine Weaver story. I am still enamored with the mystery surrounding Weaver-1000 and John Henry. I really don't think that Weaver is evil. Why train the (assumed) progenitor of SkyNet moral ethics if the goal of it's creation is to wipe out the human race? We get a little bit of the ethics work here when John Henry forces Weaver and Ellison to play Hide and Seek with Weaver's daughter. Ellison is furious at John Henry for not telling him where the girl is hiding. Weaver plays along with John Henry a little too easily, probably giving away her true identity as a Terminator to Ellison. It's an interesting scene if only because Weaver seems eager, if not overjoyed to be playing the game with John Henry. Despite not wanting to play the game earlier with the girl. It seemed like she was showing true emotion, not just emulating them. Does Weaver-bot hail from a future where SkyNet has created terminators with emotions? I don't know, but I'm excited to find out.
The turn around in the show has me bristling for the next few episodes. I just hope that Fox holds onto this one for next season. I feel like it's getting it's legs back and could be a great series soon. If Terminator Salvation, hitting theaters this summer, is a big box office winner then T:TSCC could stand to get more viewers next year, as long as the Friday Night Death Zone doesn't take another victim.
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1 comment:
Cutty's on Terminator??? Wow, maybe I should give it another chance.
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